West Indian greats have been queueing up to acclaim the brilliance of Kevin Pietersen. In little more than a week, Brian Lara, Viv Richards and Clive Lloyd have identified the England batsman as one of the likely stars of the World Cup.

It is a tribute not granted easily. Pietersen's abandonment of South Africa for England, and contemptuous comments about what he perceives as the reverse-racism of their selection policies, might easily have offended West Indian players who have drawn sporting strength from their own black consciousness.

But the Caribbean wants a party and, if the International Cricket Council has not helped by banning the conches, whistles and horns that have been so much a part of West Indian cricket, then the flamboyance of men like Pietersen, below, can help to stimulate interest in a game that lacklustre administrators have allowed to wither for much of the past 20 years. Richards, Lloyd and Lara know that this World Cup is a huge opportunity to stop the rot.

For Pietersen, the praise could not be more timely as he prepares for England's first group game against New Zealand in St Lucia on Friday. Only Pietersen in stupendous form can turn England's modest one-day recovery into something akin to a serious World Cup challenge. And The Ego is in need of a bit of a mental massage.

He did not win a single game in his 2½ months in Australia. By the time England's one-day side caused general astonishment by outstaying Australia and New Zealand to win the Commonwealth Bank trophy, he was back in England, nursing ribs cracked when he misguidedly tried to charge a short ball from Glenn McGrath.

Predictably, Australia took cheap shots at him. "He was on the plane before the x-ray came back," chided the former Australia captain Allan Border. "If he's got a broken rib, fair enough, but it was just cracked. Given two weeks' break he could be playing."

This nonsense conveniently overlooked that, whatever Australia might imagine, the triangular series was relevant to England only as World Cup preparation. When Pietersen was injured, it was unanimously agreed he should return home. The same precaution was taken with Jimmy Anderson and Jon Lewis, who failed to attract Border's attention.

But this will always be the way with Pietersen. He can be immensely polite and endearingly naive. He understands that only through the success of the England team can he achieve individual satisfaction. He is hurt by hints that he remains an outsider, that his manner can grate. But he remains the player, too, about whom a senior member of the England side said in Australia: "We'd like to like Kevin."

The 5-0 Ashes whitewash, he has admitted, was the worst time of his career and neither has his World Cup warm-up gone particularly well. Ahead of England's friendly against Australia in St Vincent he tried to play mind games with McGrath, suggesting that he was surprised the veteran quick was still quick enough to crack his ribs and that he might attempt to walk down the pitch to him again. It was all wasted breath: he never faced a ball from McGrath, chipping the first ball of Shaun Tait's second spell gently to cover.

England's first match against Bermuda had been even more galling for Pietersen. He was dismissed, stumped, by the 120kg policeman, Dwayne Leverock.

Now he has returned to an England one-day squad that has stabilised under Michael Vaughan's cry of Back to Basics. It might be a sensible policy for England but it should not be allowed to suppress Pietersen's exuberant talent.

Vaughan tells the rest of the squad that Back to Basics means doing the obvious things well. He should tell Pietersen that it refers to the legendary Leeds nightclub of the same name, which operated under the slogan: "Tales of glamour and excess."

Pietersen has the chance to become one of the World Cup's great entertainers. He credits his girlfriend, Jessica Taylor from Liberty X, for encouraging a more solid outlook on life. Hubris, perhaps, has now been softened by contentment. But then hubris is an accusation that, in their time, has been thrown at Richards, Lloyd and Lara. The Caribbean might just become a place for Pietersen to relish.